


Tempering the Storm

by Merfilly



Category: Talents Series - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:32:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Afra intrudes on the children's fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempering the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anickleoradime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anickleoradime/gifts).



> Prompt: “If you love it so much, then why don’t you marry it?”

"Damia."

Afra Lyon's voice was level, pitched just to reach the child's ears, and firm.

In other words, he was angry with her, and doing his best to prevent the Rowan from learning that fact.

It barely registered though, even as Jeran and Cera were trying to escape her telekinetic buffeting, now that they could possibly get in trouble for turning their own Talent loose against her. With a sigh, Afra did what he hated doing, and reached with his own ability to trap Damia, and her telekinesis, so that one of her own 'pushes' turned back on her.

"OW!" she cried out, falling on her butt in the corridor.

"You two. I expect you in my quarters in one hour, no excuses," he told the elder pair. They ran swiftly, and that let Afra crouch in front of the youngest of the three. "Damia."

She glared at him, but made no move to stand, contenting herself with pretty vicious thoughts like 'meanie' and 'not love you anymore'.

"Fighting, whether with your body or your Talent, is expressly forbidden. You know this. Yet, you do it anyway." Afra settled to sit in the corridor as well, long legs bent upward so he could rest his arms on his knees. "One of these days, Damia, it will be your mother that hears the fighting. And that would disrupt the Tower, as you also know."

She held the fierce glare for all of a heartbeat more, than collapsed into the most defeated pose he had ever seen, complete with a loud sigh and a suspicious sniffle after.

"They kept teasing me, about my pukha," Damia said. "Said I'm too old and if I loved it so much I'd just be a pukha bride someday."

Afra made himself count to ten in his head, in various languages, before he opened his body up, hands out… and the child rocketed into them, plastering to his chest.

A pukha figured in some of the Rowan's dreams, her nightmares, actually, that had swept him into their storms over the years. This could have spiraled sharply out of control if she had found the children.

"I will speak to them, Damia. But you… you have to learn control, little one." He placed a kiss to her forehead, sitting there with her. "You have to make a good example for your little brother, after all. What if he had been with you?"

Impossibly large eyes stared up at him stricken. "Larak is just a baby," she said, to argue the point, but he had made an impression. Larak was very much _hers_ in ways that were much like the bond between the elder two.

"But he won't be for much longer, and you'd be upset if he got in trouble because of something he saw you do, right?"

It was emotional blackmail, but Afra had to curtail her somehow.

She snuggled closer, tiny hands curled into his tunic, her forehead finding the right spot against his throat. "I'll be better, Afra, so Larak doesn't get in fights," she promised.

It might even hold this time, Afra thought, as he slowly stood to carry her back to quarters. He'd have to talk to the elder pair, but they… they were not the storm that Damia was. Damia, very much the child of the Rowan, was dangerous in her sheer ability and whim. Afra saw a tumultuous future ahead, keeping her on a safe path.


End file.
